Clayton-le-Moors owner to renovate homes

12:58pm Thursday 19th January 2012 in Clayton-le-Moors Photograph of the Author By Emma Cruces, Reporter

EYESORE Scaffolding outside the houses in Burnley Road, Clayton-le-Moors. The owner has now been ordered to put all the work right EYESORE Scaffolding outside the houses in Burnley Road, Clayton-le-Moors. The owner has now been ordered to put all the work right

THE owner of two Clayton-le-Moors terrace houses will have to renovate the properties after notices served by Hyndburn Council were ignored.

The houses had been left in disrepair for over eight years with neighbours forced to endure the eyesore and damage to their own homes.

Magistrates have now ordered owner Julia Hickmott to complete the works, and to pay costs of £1,745.

Neighbours of the Burnley Road houses, which were open to the elements, experienced water pouring into their properties after the roof was removed for a time.

One neighbour on the street, who did not wish to be named, said: “They are an eyesore and have been like that for a very long time.

“The other houses are all well kept but not those ones. It brings the whole street down.”

Mrs Hickmott bought the two properties, which are next to each other, in 2003 and since then had been carrying out phases of renovation work including removing inner walls and the roof.

This led to many problems for neighbours as water came into their homes and they found it impossible to keep the heat in.

Ward councillor for the street, and leader of the council, Miles Parkinson, said: “This has been an appalling period of time for the neighbours who shouldn’t have had to wait this long for basic repiars to be done.

“I have been speaking with them and they are enormously relieved it is now being resolved.”

Deputy leader Clare Pritch-ard, who oversees the councils’ campaign against empty houses, said: “These two houses have blighted the area and have caused neighbours a lot of trouble over the years.

“Our officers have had lots of dialogue over the years with Mrs Hickmott asking her to bring the properties in to a state of repair.

“However, this never happened and so we served noticed, which were ignored.

“We had no option but to take her to court and we are very serious about making the owners of empty houses accountable in this way”.

Magistrates gave Mrs Hickmott two conditional discharges each for 12 months to run concurrently and ordered her to pay the costs of £1745.

Comments (3)

1:20pm Thu 19 Jan 12

useyourhead says...

sounds a bit futile to me, if she had the money i am sure the works would have been done, now with the costs to pay there will be even less for the work.
-
she should be made to sell them if she has no cash for the works, i would go mad if they were next to a property of mine, hope she has had to repair the water damage at the neighbours too.
sounds a bit futile to me, if she had the money i am sure the works would have been done, now with the costs to pay there will be even less for the work. - she should be made to sell them if she has no cash for the works, i would go mad if they were next to a property of mine, hope she has had to repair the water damage at the neighbours too. useyourhead

12:16pm Sun 5 Feb 12

hairy mary says...

a house is supposed to have a roof on it to keep the rain out
a house is supposed to have a roof on it to keep the rain out hairy mary

6:45pm Sun 5 Feb 12

Annoyed of Clayton says...

Just to put "useyourhead" in the picture there is plenty of money there to do the work, they just spend time doing useless jobs like knocking down garden walls that were fine and rebuilding them, the only thing lacking is thought for the people next door who cant find Solicitors who deal with property law and have had to put up with the damp and damage to their houses with no chance of getting help to put it right, as for local MP visiting home owners ,householders have never been contacted by them and we still have the eye sore making it hard to sell our houses. There should be help via the courts when the case was heard for the poor people left to put the damage right.
Just to put "useyourhead" in the picture there is plenty of money there to do the work, they just spend time doing useless jobs like knocking down garden walls that were fine and rebuilding them, the only thing lacking is thought for the people next door who cant find Solicitors who deal with property law and have had to put up with the damp and damage to their houses with no chance of getting help to put it right, as for local MP visiting home owners ,householders have never been contacted by them and we still have the eye sore making it hard to sell our houses. There should be help via the courts when the case was heard for the poor people left to put the damage right. Annoyed of Clayton

Comments are closed on this article.

click2find

About cookies

We want you to enjoy your visit to our website. That's why we use cookies to enhance your experience. By staying on our website you agree to our use of cookies. Find out more about the cookies we use.

I agree